


Transplants Stick Together

by supergreak



Category: Torchwood, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Children of Earth Compliant, Children of Earth Fix-It, Coffee, Coping, Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergreak/pseuds/supergreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man in a well-tailored, pinstriped suit brought Carlos coffee, his third day in Night Vale, and took him out to dinner.<br/>Not like <i>that</i>.<br/>Just...for some friendly conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transplants Stick Together

He showed up with a travel mug of coffee (NVCC logo on the side) Carlos’ third day in Night Vale. He wore a well tailored suit and spoke with a Welsh accent.

“Carlos, right? How are you settling in? “

“I hadn’t even finished unpacking when the Secret Police confiscated my pencils. And pens. I think I may be in a bit over my head.”

The man smiled sympathetically at him. “It’s a big adjustment, sure, but you can make it. People have put up with a lot worse for science. But let me take you out to Big Rico’s tonight, and I can explain as much as possible about things natives will assume you already know. We transplants have got to stick together, yeah?”

Carlos accepted with a grateful smile. Sure, most of the town was welcoming enough, but they all looked at him like an idiot for not understanding things like Bloodstone circles. And he was afraid to ask some of his more obvious questions, because …well. reeducation wasn’t a joke, here.

____________________

Carlos set his pizza on the table and accepted the list warily. Written neatly in puffy paint (indigo) on a light blue sheet of cardstock with a construction paper frame, it read:  
1\. Listen to Cecil  
2\. Eat at Big Rico’s once a week (it’s mandatory)  
3\. Everything is monitored by the secret police. **Everything.**  
4\. Go to Ralph’s for decent coffee beans. You don’t want to know what’s in that crap Starbucks makes.  
5\. There’s paperwork for everything.  
6\. Don’t think about those things we aren’t meant to think about.

"It's in a frame because that makes it a _decoration_ , not a written document, and that makes the puffy paint craft supplies, not a writing implement. Those are illegal, you know."

Carlos laughed. "So it's in the technicalities?"

"Exactly. Logic is really, truly useful here as long as you remember to throw your premises out the window. And we'll get to the nitty-gritties; those are just the essentials. Coffee. I couldn't get through a week here without coffee. Cecil's going to be your source of news, warnings, and he fancies you something awful so it can't hurt to listen in. If you want to hit that, see item five. There's a After-Date Report, an Intent To Initiate Sexual Congress form, et cetera, et cetera. They're all on the city council's website...oh, and here."

The other man placed the little bottle of puffy paint on the table, along with a wrapped package. “Open it, then I’ll answer any questions you have.”

It was a labelmaker with extra refills.

“Lifesaver, honestly. Especially for a scientist. I’m an archivist at Night Vale Community College and it’s almost as good as having writing utensils legal again, when you can't just scrawl a label out with a Sharpie or put your files in order. Figured it might be useful for test tubes and petri dishes and the like. Now, let’s talk about surviving here…

__

After the man had answered all his questions (except the ones which, by law, he couldn’t), Carlos just had to ask.

"You’re so calm about this! What did you do, before Night Vale?"

He smiled serenely. ”I was an archivist Before, as well, just for a vague but menacing government agency. Well. It was in Wales, and technically we were beyond the government, above the police, but since Queen Victoria wrote our original charter, I still count it. Once you’ve seen aliens and monsters and impossible bits of technology and time travelers from a rift in time and space and half of your co-workers die and come back to life, waking up in the Night Vale Public Library isn’t really a shock at all.”

Carlos stared at him, aghast. ”But- librarians- I’ve heard things.”

"Oh, they’re exactly as terrifying as you’ve heard. Trust me. But they didn’t want to kill me; they summoned me intentionally to fix their coffeemaker. Seems I’ve got a bit of a reputation. And their summoning ritual leaves a doppelganger in place to avoid…" He gestured vaguely "Causality things. Though I looked it up and it seems like mine died not an hour after they made the swap, so I’m actually rather grateful for them kidnapping me via esoteric and likely Dark rituals. Even let me print off my resume and wrote me a letter of reference before chucking me out the window. Let me tell you, not many people get a letter of recommendation from an actual Night Vale Librarian."

(Four years and three Summer Reading Programs later, Tamika Flynn will carefully carry the still-smoking letter from the library to NVCC, where Head Archivist Jones hires her on the spot. The maintainers of books and records at the community college are not librarians, never librarians, because students actually need to use the Room Housing Many Books for research without winding up dead. However, if it isn’t managed properly librarians will show up uninvited, so recruitment is a very delicate process.)

They make the meetings a regular thing, moving locations and times for safety reasons but aiming for once a week. Ianto knows Night Vale, knows it intimately, but doesn’t laugh at Carlos’ scientific interest in goings-on of the town. After all, he remembers what it was like to be New To Town.

 

The first time Carlos cancels because of a date, Ianto laughs. And warns him not to laugh, at anything that may surprise him along the way to Romance.

"I thought you might warn me to stay detached, for…science, or whatever."

"Carlos, my friend, I wish you nothing but luck. My last boyfriend was an omnisexual time traveler from the fifty-first century, and incidentally also my boss. I have no room to judge. Zero. Just…use protection, be up front and honest about any hang-ups or questions, and don’t let unorthodox biology get in the way of having a good time. And be prepared for every detail of your date to end up on the radio, if I know Cecil."

It did. It totally did.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to remix this, sequelify it, round robin it, whatever just let me know - this isn't really a fic-with-plot so much as a bunny that I couldn't resist posting. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, so please point out spag.


End file.
